Joshua 10-11: Victories That Speak of Judgment

Introduction

There are chapters of the Bible we'd rather skip. Joshua 10 and 11 are among them: city after city, king after king, the same formula returns relentlessly: "He struck it with the edge of the sword." Benjamin Peterschmitt compares them to the novel The Plague by Albert Camus, where the real drama is not the epidemic, but the initial refusal to look reality in the face. The key to courage, in this text, is precisely not looking away: looking at God's judgment, understanding that it is real, and discovering why grace in Jesus is both so costly and so precious.

Sermon Outline

1. A local and historical judgment

• Chapter 10: the southern campaign (battle against the five Amorite kings, capture of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir), God intervenes miraculously for Joshua.
• Chapter 11: the northern campaign (King Jabin of Hazor gathers an immense coalition, Joshua attacks by surprise, Hazor is burned, the Anakim are exterminated).
• A formula recurs about 15 times across the two chapters: Joshua takes the city, "he struck it with the edge of the sword" and "devoted" everything to the Lord. This repetition is not accidental, the author wants to keep us from trivializing it.
• This judgment is not a sudden divine outburst: God had told Abraham in Genesis 15 that "in the fourth generation" his descendants would return, "for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." Four centuries of patience, during which Canaanite practices included: incest, child sacrifice on the altars of their gods, consulting spirits, sorcery.
• God's patience is not passive waiting: it is an open door. Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, heard, turned away from her former life, and was spared. Repentance was possible for everyone. But when the delay reaches its end, God says "enough."

2. A universal and final judgment

• The book of Joshua is not simply an ancient parenthesis. It fits within the larger story the Bible tells (66 books, 40 authors, 1500 years), to show how God saves humanity.
• Joshua (Yeshua in Hebrew) and Jesus (Yeshua) share the same name: "The Lord saves." Joshua is the model, Jesus is the finished building. Joshua leads Israel into a geographic rest; Jesus leads us toward an eternal rest. Joshua carries out judgment on the Canaanite peoples; Jesus, to whom the Father has entrusted all judgment (John 5), carries out judgment on the scale of all humanity.
• Why has the final judgment not yet fallen? Peter answers: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise… he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3). We live today in a period of grace, comparable to the 400 years between Abraham and Joshua, but a delay that has an end.
• Matthew 25 describes it: the Son of Man will come in his glory, will separate the sheep from the goats, and the judgment will be universal. If the local execution of the Canaanites troubles us, that's a good thing: it prepares us to take seriously the judgment that will concern all people and all generations.
• The Canaanites' problem was not cultural: it was idolatry, the refusal of God, persistence in sin. Our contemporary idolatry (power, image, success, security, pleasure, control) is of the same family, it has just changed its face.

3. A courageous response

• Acknowledge. Not acknowledge the judgment itself (that is a fact), but acknowledge the evil that is in us and our tendency to want to live without God. The Canaanites are not monsters set apart: we are on the same human team, the one that always produces idols.
• Grasp grace. The judgment is real, but there is only one refuge: Jesus. He is not merely a moral example; he took upon himself, in our place, the punishment that should have fallen on us. To say that Jesus saves us from our sins without speaking of judgment is to speak of the crime without speaking of the verdict.
• Respond with gratitude. How do we treat someone who has saved us from a great disaster? We check in on them, we say thank you, we build a real relationship. Does your relationship with God look like that?
• Respond with zeal. If you truly believe the judgment to come, is your zeal equal to it? How many colleagues, friends, loved ones have heard the good news from you? Great preachers like Spurgeon proclaimed both God's love and the wrath to come, not to manipulate, but because they truly believed it.

Key Takeaways

• The real drama of Joshua 10-11 is not the violence of the chapters, it is our temptation to look away from the reality of God's judgment.
• God's patience is immense (400 years for the Amorites, 2000 years for humanity since the cross), but it has an end. Judgment is not the opposite of patience, it is its culmination.
• God has not changed between the Old and New Testaments. He has always been love, he has always been just. What changed is that Jesus took upon himself the punishment we deserved.
• Joshua is the model, Jesus is the finished building. What Joshua accomplishes over a territory, Jesus accomplishes on the scale of all humanity.
• "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." For the one who is in Christ, judgment has already passed, God's wrath has already fallen, on the cross.

Personal Application

1. When you read harsh biblical texts like Joshua 10-11, what is your first reaction: to avoid them, to make excuses for God, or to let them trouble you as the author intended?
2. What has Jesus actually saved you from? If your answer is only "from my sins" or "from Satan," do you also understand that he saved you from the judgment to come?
3. What are your current idols, power, image, success, security, pleasure, control? Where are you quietly organizing your life without God?
4. If you truly believed there is a coming judgment for those who do not know Jesus, how would that change the way you speak to your colleagues, your neighbors, your family?
5. Is your gratitude toward God equal to the price Jesus paid for you? How will you concretely say thank you to him this week?

Scripture References

• Joshua 10 (LSG), The southern campaign
• Joshua 11 (LSG), The northern campaign
• Genesis 15:16 (LSG), "The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete"
• Joshua 2:9-11 (LSG), Rahab hears and repents
• Luke 24:27 (LSG), Jesus explains the whole Old Testament concerning himself
• John 5:22-27 (LSG), The Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son
• 2 Peter 3:9-10 (LSG), God's patience, the day of the Lord
• Matthew 25:31-46 (LSG), The judgment of the sheep and the goats
• Romans 1:18 (LSG), The wrath of God is revealed
• Romans 5:9 (LSG), Saved by him from wrath
• Romans 8:1 (LSG), "No condemnation for those who are in Christ"

Further reading

• Which Bible Translation Should You Choose?
• How to Read the Bible When You're Just Starting Out
• How to Meditate on a Bible Verse

Frequently Asked Questions

How can the God of Joshua be the same as the God of Jesus?

There are not two Gods in the Bible. The God who judges the Canaanites in Joshua 10-11 is the same one who sends his Son to die on the cross. He has always been love and he has always been just. What changes between the Old and New Testaments is not God, it is our place in the story of salvation: we live today in a period of grace opened by the cross, but one day, just as he did for the Amorites after 400 years of patience, God will once again say "enough."

Why does Joshua exterminate entire populations?

The text does not present these conquests as a simple ethnic conflict, but as divine judgment on peoples whose iniquity (child sacrifice, incest, occultism) had reached its full measure after four centuries of patience. God had announced this judgment to Abraham in Genesis 15, and he carries it out through Joshua. Rahab the Canaanite shows that repentance remained possible right up to the end, judgment strikes those who persist in refusing God, not those who turn toward him.

Is fearing judgment a good reason to come to Jesus?

Yes. Rahab herself came to the God of Israel first because she had heard what he was about to do and feared his judgment. Fear of judgment is not a perfect faith, but it leads to genuine faith. To say "Jesus saves us from our sins" without understanding the judgment from which he saves us is to speak of the crime without speaking of the verdict. God's love takes on its full depth when we understand what he is saving us from.